Talk:António de Oliveira Salazar
I have been developing the hypothesis that HT included Sanjurjo in TWTPE in an effort to depict a world where fascism is completely wiped out in Europe. Two problems with that theory are: 1) Given how the war broke out, Franco would just as easily worked as Sanjurjo; and, 2) our friend Salazar here hasn't brought Portugal into the fray, nor does it seem likely he will. So never mind. TR 17:07, July 17, 2010 (UTC) :You know, I'm starting to ignore Sanjurjo altogether. Nothing that's come out of Spain has affected the story at all, both POV characters there stand out even among this wooden cast for their lack of, umm, sympathizability (Is that a word? It is now) and I find it fundamentally disappointing that HT would commit so gauche a sin as to use multiple PODs anyway. So I haven't bothered hypothesizing. Kudos to you for engaging with the text more actively than I have. Turtle Fan 18:15, July 17, 2010 (UTC) ::Halfway through HW I imagined that the Germans would roll over France as in real life and then join Sanjurjo in an Iberian campaign destined to finally wipe out the Spanish Republic. After that they would put a Napoleon 2.0 and invade Portugal to deny Britain the possibility to enter the continent through there (In OTL Salazar maintained good relations with the British and even let them set bases in the Açores). Then Iberia would be liberated by Anglo-French-American troops and local guerrillas in an hybrid of the Peninsular War and the African and and Italian campaigns in WW2, so post-war Portugal and Spain would not have choice but to be part of the western democracies. ::But then the Allies won in Paris and the why would they let Sanjurjo go away with taking Gibraltar became an inmense question. :::Lack of resources? From what I can tell, it wasn't really fortified until 1939-40 in OTL. It wouldn't have been completely undefended in HW, but taking isn't so implausible. And given the rest of Europe falling down, the Allies would have been busy. TR 15:20, May 23, 2011 (UTC) ::::Oh, it's not a counterattack in Gibraltar itself what I had in mind. In OTL the Brits planned an immediate invasion of the Canaries if Franco attacked Gibraltar. I suppose the same plays here - even more so since they wouldn't be seizing the islands for themselves but "returning" them to the Spanish Republic. And it would be incredibly easy to do so, just have Weinberg do the radio trick McGill and the Russian have been doing for half of their scenes, and throw in the line "Canarian born PM Negrín congratulates the British for liberating his homeland. "Good you limeys decided to stop thumbing up your asses after 2 years and finally decided to join the fight against Fascism" he declared". Heck, make the radio broadcaster be La Pasionaria and we would have 3 new articles in the wiki. If the British themselves and the Canadians are too busy fighting in France they could send the ANZAC there - after all, isn't Japan too busy itself punching Stalin to look south?WastedTime 10:38, May 24, 2011 (UTC) ::Followed by why did Sanjurjo bother to attack the Allies at all. :::Based on some quick Googling, he seems to have been pretty arrogant and audacious in OTL, though whether that means he'd attack the Allies is a matter of opinion. He's also obviously firmly up Hitler's ass in this series, though whether or not that is borne out by history is also probably a matter of opinion. TR 15:20, May 23, 2011 (UTC) ::Or why is Italy in before the invasion of France or what the hell is going on in the Mediterranean and the Spanish and Italian African colonies. The PODs POVs chosen for this particular theatre were terrible, because they barely told us of any developments there.WastedTime 11:26, May 23, 2011 (UTC) :::I'm guessing nothing. Every reference to Italy thus far has described how worthless they are to the war effort. I'm thinking Italy declared war, but Mussolini has proceeded to do absolutely as little as possible heretofore. TR 15:20, May 23, 2011 (UTC) :::Don't know what to tell you, other than that the setup for this series is weird. You keep hearing Nationalists say "Good thing Franco's in charge or we'd be fucked," when in fact Franco would have led them to victory already. So there's irony there. I've resigned myself to the notion that this irony is all HT ever intended. Turtle Fan 15:08, May 23, 2011 (UTC) ::::Well, if irony was indeed everything Turtledove ever intended he missed a great boat by not including a reference to the Regulares. Even a dumb kid snatched from the plow like Delgadillo would notice something wrong with the rebels rethoric about reconquistas, crusades and fighting on God's side if Sanjurjo's bodyguards are Muslim. Not to mention that invading Spanish Morocco would have been the first thing the French would do right after Sanjurjo's air force decides to bomb the French Basque Country. Losing in 6 months that piece of Africa that Spain spent 6 years pacifying and where Sanjurjo made his name, the place where his most fearsome corps came from - the Regulares and the Spanish Foreign Legion - should have gotten a line. But who am I kidding. It's obvious neither Turtledove's interest nor knowledge in the SCW is very big. My impression is that, much like DOI, he began compilling this series with leftovers of what he found while writing his magnum opus 191, and decided to throw in something about the Abe Lincolns after reading in the meantime that Milt Wolff had passed away. ::::Overall it is... dishearting. It would be so easy. He has Delgadillo mention the Canaries for a joke but can't say what's going on in the Canaries. He mentions Spanish Morocco and French bombers taking off (French?) Morocco, but can't say ''what ''happened to Spanish Morocco. He has Vaclav boarding a boat bound for France and worrying that the Italians might sunk him but there isn't an actual scene of the time he sails between Corsica and the Balearics which would be obvious battlegrounds themselves... Well, he has a scene taking place before the attack on Gibraltar and another when Gibraltar has already fallen. That pretty much sums the whole thing.WastedTime 10:38, May 24, 2011 (UTC) :::::Again, I don't know what to tell you. After HW I felt somewhat like that about the entire series. After W&E I saw the main storylines starting to improve, but the SCW not benefiting from that. I also don't have any great interest in the SCW and I'm glad that SOMETHING is coming of the series, so I'm not as bothered as you are, but your grievances are legitimate. Turtle Fan 16:43, May 24, 2011 (UTC) Some picture. It looks like something you'd bring with you to an open audition to a part as an extra in a movie. Turtle Fan 23:30, November 6, 2010 (UTC) :I thought much the same thing about Rudolf Hess's photo. TR 06:35, November 7, 2010 (UTC) ::That too, though you wouldn't wear an SS uniform in such a picture. Maybe for a war movie. Turtle Fan 14:56, November 7, 2010 (UTC)